Toronto Canoe Club Hockey Team / Toronto Canoe Club Paddlers
Memorial Cup Champions 1920
J. Ross Robertson Cup Champions 1920

Team Roster
Top Row L to R - Roy "Shrimp" Worters, Lionel Pretoria Conacher, Harry Wilfred "Billy" Burch (captain), Wilfred Belmont "Tex" White.

Middle Row - John A. Mollenhauer, Francis Joseph "Duke" McCurry, Francis William "Frank, Dinty" Moore, Harold Applegath.

Third Row - Cyril J. Kelly, Sydney Hueston.

Bottom Row - W.C. Gowland, Bart Howitt, T.F. Livingstone, R.F. Wilson, W.H. Reid, W.C. Baker, Richard Leo "Dick" Carroll (coach).

In a two-game, total goal series, held at the Arena Gardens in Toronto, Ontario, the Toronto Canoe Club Paddlers won their first Memorial Cup, defeating the Selkirk Juniors 15 - 5.

Before making the OHA Memorial Cup championship games, they lost 6-5 to the Stratford Midgets, a team that featured Howie Morenz, but then roared back with a 10-2 victory to win the two-game, total-goal affair, 15-8.

The Paddlers then hammered the Quebec-champion Loyola College of Montreal 16-4, and beat the Fort William Beavers 16-1.

In the Memorial Cup championship series vs the Selkirk Juniors, here's how Winnipeg Free Press sporting editor W.J. (Billy) Finlay began his report after the series:

"After putting up a game battle for two periods, in which they displayed a lot of class against superior odds, Stan Kennedy's Selkirks faded badly in the final session, and were forced to submit to a 10-1 beating at the hands of Dick Carroll's hand-picked Canoe Club stars in the first game for the junior Hockey championship of Canada.”

In front of about 3,000 fans, the Paddlers led 2-0 and 3-0 at the period breaks.

"Starting off badly, when they appeared to be affected by stage fright,” Finlay reported, "the Fishtown lads finally caught themselves and were unlucky to be two goals down on the first session, and when they came back and outplayed their heavier and older opponents though outscored 1-0 in the second session, the 3,000 fans began to take notice, and cheered them loudly for their plucky work. But they had shot their bolt in their strenuous efforts in the second session, as they were badly outplayed in the final spasm, when the locals ran in six goals, mostly by fast combination play, in which the scorer worked in on top of the net.”

As for the Canoe Club, Finlay wrote that Burch was especially sharp. "Burch, at centre, is a long, rangy boy, who is a wonderful backchecker and a wonder in carrying the puck,” Finlay wrote.

But Finlay pointed out that the Paddlers weren't too popular in the east - "They are very unpopular here,'' he reported, "owing to the fact that they were picked up from different parts of the country and molded into one strong aggregation, and have such a big advantage over all the Ontario teams that they have killed interest in junior Hockey.”

The Canoe Club wrapped up the Memorial Cup on March 25 with a 5-4 victory in a game that was described as listless.
"The canoeists showed little interest in the game,” according to one report, "and the handful of spectators expressed disappointment in the comparatively small score.”

Duke McCurry led the Toronto Canoe Club Paddlers in the playoffs and to the Memorial Cup with an incredible 21 goals and 32 points in 12 games.